Regency Romance: The Lady's Masquerade (A Historical Romance Book) (COMPLETED)

PROLOGUE

May 1805

The storm had been threatening for days. Later, they would say that it was one of the worst storms of the last decade. The road would have been inky black, with nothing to mark the perilous turns. Were the driver and team reliable? Was Lissa afraid?

Probably not, Delia decided. Her little sister might have been dreamy, and perhaps she was inclined to leap before she looked, but no one would ever have called her a coward.

The storm would have broken quickly in the night, rolling down on the carriage like an ancient and terrible wrath. The horses ran along the road, eager for shelter, but then a thunder clap deafened them. One reared, taking its mate with it, and the carriage tilted on two wheels. For a moment, just a moment, there was a chance it would right itself. But no.

The horses, the slick road, the darkness... It was all too much. The carriage rolled, the wooden shell cracking like an egg, the timbers as sharp as teeth and—

"And as she was loved, so she will be loved, and as she wept, so now she brings tears..."

Delia realized that she must have made some kind of sound. All around her, bonneted heads turned toward her subtly, some in concern, some for gossip's sake, and all unwelcome.

Behind her black veil, Delia lowered her eyes, mutinous until she felt her father's hand fumble for hers. There was a palsy to his grip that had gotten worse when the news came to them of Lissa's death, and she squeezed his hand hard, wishing she could give him some of her strength.

She was Delia Scarborough, the daughter of the Marquess of Winsbury, who had fought at Marseilles and even farther afield. She was the descendant of eight generations of noblemen who had all served their country, loved their families, and died doing what they knew was right. She would not disgrace herself at her sister's graveside, no matter how hot her eyes felt or how thick the lump in her throat.

She almost made it. It was only when they began to lower her sister's casket into the ground that a small voice piped up in the back of her mind, a dusty memory.

Delia, it's so very dark, can I sleep with you?

Suddenly, it was as if the very air had been knocked from her lungs. Delia wavered, and for a moment, she was certain she would simply faint from the weight of the grief that dropped upon her.

She had a sudden mad impulse to insist that they stop. Lissa hated the dark; she hated the crawling things that burrowed through the earth. They could not do this.

The only thing that kept her back was the sight of her father, positioned in his elegant wheeled chair at the head of the grave. The marquess's sorrow ravaged him, left him a frame of a man rather than the full one he should have been, and Delia took a deep breath.

I will survive this. This is as hard as it ever gets. I will walk through this, and on the other side, I will have vengeance for Lissa.

That night, after the mourners had been seen off, the curate paid, and her father seen to his bed, Delia retired to her room earlier than usual. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to crawl off to her familiar bed, placing her round spectacles in their accustomed place, and hope she dreamed of Lissa in some happy land.

Instead, she carefully laid her black crepe gown over the top of her chair for her maid, and she went to her closet where she removed a gown of drab serviceable gray linen. It was one of four, the other three already packed in her small worn bag. They were identical to one another, and only the excellent fit saved her from looking like a servant who worked below stairs.

Dressed in the gray gown, Delia pulled her brown hair down from its fashionable braids and pulled the fine strands straight back from her face, scraping it all into a large bun at the nape of her neck.

When she examined herself in the mirror, she found no trace of a marquess's daughter, not even the eldest bookish girl who had few marriage prospects and little interest in looking for one.

I look like a governess. The thought satisfied her, and again, she glanced at the white handkerchief that she had seldom let out of her sight since she had received it from the wreckage.

It was clutched in Miss Scarborough's hand, Miss Delia. She hung on to it so tight, we could barely pry it out.

Her baby sister had held on to it as she lay dying on a lonely road heading north. Their driver was killed in the same accident, but of the man in the carriage with her, the one who had booked it, who had held her sister's arm as if they were already married, there was no trace.

The inn where they had spent the previous night had thought they were husband and wife, and if they had made it to Gretna Green, they would have been.

Delia's thoughts were ice-cold.

Imagine. In another world, I would be scolding Lissa for her insane recklessness and meeting my new brother-in-law. I would have no idea that he was the kind of blaggard who would seduce a girl and leave her to die in a wrecked carriage.

She wondered if Lissa would have called for him in her last moments, if she would have brought the handkerchief to her lips in prayer, listening for his return.

It didn't matter now. Her sister was dead, and the man who had caused her death was still alive. He was missing a handkerchief, however, and that was careless of him, especially as the initials on the corner and the meticulously stitched crest identified him as swiftly as an actor's spotlight on Drury Lane.

Delia slipped out of the home she had lived in all her life, avoiding the creaky floorboards and the reluctant doors. There was a note for her father left folded on his bedside, and there was a man in the village who was willing to take her to Hove, where she could find her way onto the Royal Mail coach.

Folded tightly into a tiny package at the bottom of her bag was the damning handkerchief, and as she made her way into the night, Delia's thoughts were grim.

You are going to pay for what you did to my sister, my lord Duke of Cowanfield.

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